State v. Gutierrez
This text of 429 So. 2d 62 (State v. Gutierrez) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court of Appeal of Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
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The state appeals from orders which respectively suppressed, on Miranda grounds, statements made by the defendant when he was being transported to the police station from the place of arrest and granted the defendant’s Fla.R.Crim.P. 3.190(c)(4) motion to dismiss charges of possession and trafficking in methaqualone.
Although the arresting officer was the only witness at the hearing, his testimony was in internal self-conflict both as to whether Gutierrez had waived his Miranda rights and whether the admissions now in question were volunteered by the defendant or were the product of subsequent interrogation by the police. Since we cannot interfere with the trial court’s resolution of these conflicts and its implied factual finding that the statements were unauthorizedly secured, e.g., McNamara v. State, 357 So.2d 410 (Fla.1978), the order of suppression is affirmed.
The “(c)(4)” dismissal, however, cannot stand. Even without the suppressed admissions, the defendant’s unsuppressed pre-arrest statement that he was the owner of the tote bag in which the quaaludes were [63]*63found1 was alone sufficient to require denial of the sworn motion to dismiss. E.g., State v. Holder, 400 So.2d 162 (Fla. 3d DCA 1981), and cases cited.
Affirmed in part, reversed in part.
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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack
429 So. 2d 62, 1983 Fla. App. LEXIS 18995, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-gutierrez-fladistctapp-1983.